Her happiness, the something borrowed (Image via Neon)
In a relatively quiet year, at least one blockbuster and a dozen or more small films captured my imagination. More than ever, films are going to be a refuge from the insanity of the world — and here are Boy Culture's picks for the best movies of 2024 to be just that:
(Image via Miramax)
(15) Strange Darling (directed by J.T. Mollner) — A thrill ride of a serial killer film with noir touches and impeccable set design, Strange Darling was the last film to make my list — I just watched it the night before adding it. I found Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner's performances to be equally absorbing, and the mock-doc vibe to be a delightful hat tip to the trend of getting off on true crime. Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey popping up as old hippies was the cherry on top. This thing slays.
(14) His Three Daughters (directed by Azazel Jacobs) — I just loved this tense exploration of the family dynamics at play as a man's three daughters attend to him in his dying days. Natasha Lyonne, Carrie Coon and Elizabeth Olsen are painfully real as they take potshots at each other, sniping as their dad draws his last breaths. Maybe some will find it hard to take, it's so real, but I thought it was brave and exciting. When we finally see Dad (Jay O. Sanders), the sequence is startling and a fitting finale. Can't recommend it highly enough.
(Image via Focus)
(13) Conclave (directed by Edward Berger) — To some, this papal drama is the film of the year. I can't embrace it that fully, but I found it to be a remarkably finely observed what-if kind of picture anchored by the performance of Ralph Fiennes as a priest with more integrity than most of the others who have convened to elect a new pope. Stanley Tucci is entertaining as a catty hopeful, John Lithgow as a conniving bastard and Isabella Rossellini is like a single bold stroke in a reserved painting as a nun who sees through all the bullshit. Carlos Diehz, a relative newcomer to acting, has a quiet dignity as the human embodiment of all the Church's modernity problems.
(Image via Universal)
(12) Thelma (directed by Josh Margolin) — I went in expecting a silly comedy about old age, and instead fell for this caper film's hilariously restrained scenes in light of its nonagenarian subject's own slow pace. June Squibb is the title character, a woman who has been scammed by a virtual kidnapping scam centered around her grandson (Fred Hechinger) and who decides to run her own investigation to get her cash back. She has the assistance of a pal (the late Richard Roundtree, charming in his final feature) and admirable moxy, leading her to a criminal, er, mastermind (Malcolm McDowell) who's no spring chicken himself.
(11) A Complete Unknown (directed by James Mangold) — I'm not a Dylan admirer, but this unusual biopic is so laser-focused on the beginning of his career that it becomes more the story of a mercurial young music-maker who knows himself to a scary degree and his navigation of two early love affairs. Three, actually — counting his own destiny. Timothée Chalamet could rightfully be likened to his generation's Pacino or De Niro, and he's terrific here, suggesting Dylan without caricature, in spite of the fact that Dylan is sometimes a cartoon for real. His singing voice is both fantastic and fantastically Dylan. As good as he is, I was equally impressed with Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Elle Fanning as a fictionalized version of Dylan's early girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Truly outstanding. Everything Bohemian Rhapsody was not.
(Image via Universal)
(10) Wicked (directed by Jon M. Chu) — I didn't love the Broadway musical, but I thought the movie, the origin story of Elphaba, Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo), shimmered. Along with an impeccable Erivo, Ariana Grande as Glinda is an absolute riot, and both sing so powerfully it brought tears to my eyes for the more iconic songs. I had to get past the CGI animals and the fact that Shiz University looked like the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian in Las Vegas, but there were so many inspired touches and casting choices (Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard ... of course!), Wicked wound up being a pleasure. And that's a hard sell, considering everyone you thought was so sickly sweet in The Wizard of Oz is revealed to be an asshole. I wouldn't be mad if Grande won the Oscar.
(9) The Substance (directed by Coralie Fargeat) — A divisive phantasmagoria about our society's obsession with beauty, youth and perfection, The Substance expands on Coralie Fargeat's 2014 short Reality+, fully exploring its themes to the point of exhaustion. At times, watching the story of aptly named celeb Elisabeth Sparkle (a transcendent Demi Moore, also aptly named) who takes a mysterious drug called the Substance that promises surreal youth can be overwhelming, but that's really the point. Nothing is subtle, from the giddy production design to the events that snowball as Elisabeth and her youthful alter ego (Margaret Qualley) wind up locked in battle for supremacy, breaking one of the product's ultimate rules: You. Are. One. In spite of many ridiculous aspects — or because of them — The Substance feels like an instant classic.
(Image via A24)
(8) Heretic (directed by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods) — I tilt toward horror, and found the unbearable suspense of this creepy-old-man (Hugh Grant) thriller intoxicating. When two seemingly naive Mormon girls (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) find themselves trapped in a prospective convert's home, shut off from the world, we find ourselves trapped along with them, and all of us are subjected to our host's intense mind games that swirl around concepts of religiosity. Eventually, the cat-and-mouse becomes more bad cat/good cat, and that's where I found myself addicted to the film's premise. An out-of-nowhere spot of overly aggressive makeup didn't pull me out of it, and I adored its couple of twisted twists.
(Image via StudioCanal)
(7) The Outrun (directed by Nora Fingscheidt) — Saorise Ronan gives a tremendously authentic performance as a messy young woman struggling with alcoholism in this film based on the Amy Liptrot memoir of the same name. The film is spacious and slow-moving, but not boring; careful. It measures her wildly different moments in life — a biology student, a wild clubber, a problematic girlfriend, the daughter of divided parents. Her quest for normalcy and sobriety is directly tied to her move back to nature in Scotland.
(6) Ghostlight (directed by Kelly O'Sullivan & Alex Thompson) — A remarkably deeply felt film about a construction worker (Keith Kupferer) who, while struggling with the frustrating behavior of his daughter (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), his challenging marriage and the loss of his son, gravitates to an age-blind community-theater production of Romeo and Juliet co-starring Rita (Dolly de Leon), a woman further along on the journey he's on. I'll take 100 of these before any big production any day. Big year for Dolly, who also makes her mark in Between the Temples.
The Room Next Door — every frame is a work of art. Or patterned after one. (Images by Andrew Wyeth & via video still)
(5) The Room Next Door (directed by Pedro Almodóvar) — An old-fashioned, borderline melodramatic women's picture, this cerebral story of euthanasia as experienced by three women is like a George Cukor film directed by Hitchcock. I kept expecting a shocking twist, but the film was all about moments and observations and character development as steady and as measured as an MRI. Exquisitely made, it is visually one for the ages, and it is also — under Almodóvar's careful eye — a breathtaking capturing of two movie stars at the top of their game that is old-fashioned in the best sense. Julianne Moore is as if fresh from Far from Heaven, and Tilda Swinton has never been this good. Ever.
(Image via Amazon MGM)
(4) Nickel Boys (directed by RaMell Ross) — Based on the atrocious abuses perpetrated at Florida's Dozier School in the '60s, The Nickel Boys follows the story of two Black kids, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), who are imprisoned at the school and their dramatically different approaches to surviving. The film is aggressively poetic and rendered in unexpected ways at each turn. It elevates the telling of a story to art, and honors the real-life boys whose lives were so unfairly hampered and shortened by the men who ran the facility. Another major selling point of this one is the work of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Elwood's grandma, who struggles to keep the faith in the face of cruel fate.
(3) I'm Still Here (directed by Walter Salles) — I was blown away by this achingly honest depiction of the struggle of one family whose patriarch, former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) is arrested, tortured and secretly murdered by the military in Brazil. His wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) immediately begins a fearless journey to find out what happened to her husband, never ignoring — but never giving in to — the harsh reality that, having been arrested and interrogated herself, she could easily wind up disappeared, too. Torres is nothing short of incredible, as are the young actors who play the Paiva children, creating a portrait of integrity in the face of totalitarianism.
(GIF via Pathé)
(2) Emilia Pérez (directed by Jacques Audiard) — When I started this film, I was expecting a musical, and it is ... but as it unwound, as effective as the musical outbursts were, I was surprised to find its neo-noir sensibilities becoming more dominant. In the end, the story of a drug lord (Karla Sofía Gascón) who forces a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to assist in a goal to transition to female and start over as a philanthropist felt Shakespearean to me — helped along by a pair of vulnerable molls (Selena Gomez) and Adriana Paz, and an errant bad boy (Édgar Ramírez). The performances are incredible, none more so than Saldaña's — it's her movie first. As for Gomez, who has been criticized, I thought her Jessi was an immediate addition to the cinematic gallery of powerfully powerless objects of great beauty.
(1) Anora (directed by Sean Baker) — A wild ride of a movie, this is the film Sean Baker came close to making with his excellent Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017) and Red Rocket (2021). Mikey Madison gives the performance of the year as Anora, a stripper who seemingly lucks into a youthful sugar daddy in the form of, Vanya, a romantic Russian Gen Z superbrat (Mark Eydelshteyn). The first part of the movie follows their giddy lust-at-first-sight story, culminating with an impulsive Vegas wedding, but things get a lot more interesting when thugs arrive on orders of Vanya's oligarch parents to force an annulment. One of them (Yura Borisov) is smitten with Anora, and their uneasy journey from kidnapper-victim to something that transcends the lunacy around them gives the film an unforgettable emotional resonance. Really a knockout.
Liked:
The Apprentice (loathe Trump, yet this held me)
Babes (obnoxious, but mostly funny)
Babygirl (nothing special, but great fun)
Between the Temples (perfect Harold & Maude update)
Blitz (amazing Saorise Ronan and Elliott Heffernan in a great Greatest Generation drama about a lost boy in London at the height of the Blitz)
Caddo Lake (interesting thriller with a twist and great perfs by Dylan O'Brien, Lauren Ambrose and Eliza Scanlen)
Civil War (not great, but compelling)
The End (wildly ambitious, ultimately quite absorbing end-of-the-world musical)
The Fall Guy (fun enough)
Handling the Undead (pleasingly slow and weird)
In a Violent Nature (uniquely terrifying and revolting, and I could not stop watching)
The Last Showgirl (though Pamela Anderson was just so-so and the plot was very thin)
Late Night with the Devil (mixed emotions, but it's stayed with me)
Lee (fantastic WWII biopic)
Look Into My Eyes (this doc about mediums is way above-average, and I don't believe in this crap at ALL)
Love Lies Bleeding (Gregg Araki-ish)
MaXXXine (this trilogy ends less memorably than I'd hoped, but I did enjoy this ride)
My Old Ass (adorable)
Nosferatu (exquisite to look at, if a bit ... pointless?)
Oddity (honestly, it was like a long Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but extremely well-done)
A Quiet Place: Day One (great that this series now has three totally solid films in it)
Sing Sing (a beautifully acted and satisfying tale of redemption)
The Six Triple Eight (a nicely told story of WWII perseverance in an atmosphere of racial intolerance)
Smile 2 (admirably, this is almost totally a psychological thriller instead of a creepy slasher flick, and the special effects are actually special)
Speak No Evil (wanted to be in a theater, screaming at the parents' stupidity)
The Watchers (super up its own ass, but still enjoyed it)
We Live in Time (I cried 'n' cried)
Wicked Little Letters (slight, but good fun)
One lone Hoult-out (Image via Warner Bros.)
Didn't Understand the Fuss:
Alien: Romulus (give me a break)
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (crap)
The Brutalist (beautifully made, beautifully acted, falls apart completely in the second half, bizarre rape thrown in)
Carry-On (ridiculous)
Challengers (pretty to look at, sexy, but dull)
Cuckoo (great performance by Hunter Schafer, but just a bonkers, bonkers movie)
Daddio (a tedious My Dinner with André)
Deadpool & Wolverine (CRAP)
The Deliverance (embarrassing storyline, embarrassing performances)
A Different Man (all high-concept)
Dune: Part 2 (flat)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (I liked it fine)
Hit Man (pointless)
Hundreds of Beavers (unwatchable)
I Saw the TV Glow (the most overhyped spot of nothing I can recall in recent years)
Janet Planet (unwatchable)
Juror #2 (a competent 1990s TV movie in style and execution)
Kneecap (couldn't even make it through)
The Last Showgirl (a just-okay Sunset Boulevard homage, but we've seen this before and Pamela Anderson was just adequate, and quite bad in her opening scene)
Longlegs (laughably bad throughout)
Maria (actressy performance, pretentious framing)
Memoir of a Snail (animation is a hard-sell for me)
Problemista (unwatchable)
Queer (dreary and arty, thoroughly overproduced, though credibly sensual with nice performances — much better prior to the South American clap-trap)
A Real Pain (it — and he — was)
Saturday Night (tedious, bad wigs, too-earnest impersonations)
Trap (worst movie of the year, beyond cringe, worst acting ... my God, Josh Hartnett ... embarrassed)
Tuesday (unwatchable, so I assume Julia may have financed it?)
High anxiety (Image via video still)
Aside from Obvious Contenders, I Hope Award Shows Consider Performances by: Elliott Heffernan, Blitz; Carol Kane, Between the Temples; Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight; Natasha Lyonne, His Three Daughters; Julianne Moore, The Room Next Door; Adam Pearson, A Different Man; Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice; Tilda Swinton, The Room Next Door
Still Need to See: All We Imagine as Light, The Count of Monte-Cristo, Didi, The Girl with the Needle, Gladiator 2, Hard Truths, Infested, Joy, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Nowhere Special, One Life, The Piano Lesson, Scoop, September 5, The Wild Robot, Young Woman and the Sea
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